Malawi Union of the Blind still protest against bank notes: Blind-unfriendly

Malawi Union for the Blind has snubbed new money samples produced by Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) saying they are still not blind-friendly, arguing they did not still follow what the visually impaired people had earlier proposed.

On 23 May 2012, the RBM issued the new currency whose features did not please people with visual impairment complaining that they were not blind friendly.

Vice chairman for the Union in northern district of Karonga Noah Simwaka said it unfortunate that the RBM has not made any improvement on the feature for the betterment of blind to address the challenges they are experiencing with the current bank notes.

“RBM has not yet met our needs, these samples are still friendly to sighted people only and the surprising thing is that we told them that they should put braille signs which we use not what they have done. There are no differences with the current bank notes,” he says.

Visually impaired pose for Nyasa Times…Picture by Tiwonge Kumwenda

Simwaka adds: “What we are asking them now is that they should still modify the money by putting braille sign because the sign which is here is more faint, we will prefer that they should do it fast if they are respecting our rights because it seems that they are taking us for granted by not following what we want.”

He added that they are finding more problems with the current bank noye as some people who trade goods take advantage to rip them off.

“We are facing so many challenges such that we always depend on someone to help us when we want to buy anything without that we become slaves of our own money,” said Simwaka.

The Union’s Executive Director Ezekiel Kumwenda concurred with Simwaka RBM to modify the money again as everyone is complaining the same the whole country.

However RBM officials say they made a wider consultation to come up with the new samples